Dear credit agencies: I’m not dead yet

Stan Glogowski jumped at the bank’s suggestion that he consider refinancing the mortgage on his three-bedroom ranch-style rental house back in April.

The potential savings that could come with a lower interest rate looked good, and he soon was discussing the process on the telephone with a bank mortgage specialist.

Stan Glogowski

“May I check your credit score?” he was asked.

“Sure,” he said.

Glogowski, 66, felt confident his score would confirm his qualifications. The Ballston Spa widower owns four residential properties, as well as credit cards, and he is scrupulous about paying bills on time.

“I have good credit,” he told me. “I’ve always had good credit.”

But when the Bank of America representative returned to the line, he said there was a problem. The credit rating agencies Experian and Equifax listed him as “deceased,” Glogowski was told.

This was so obviously inaccurate — after all, he’s not only walking, talking and breathing; he’s continuing to pay all of his bills — that he figured it would be a simple matter to straighten out.

As part of that effort, he went to a website that widely advertises its offerings of “free” credit reports. (This led to a $35 charge for a “membership” in the service, which he successfully disputed with help from his credit card provider, American Express).

As a result of that inquiry, he was told that Experian and Equifax were unable to provide reports, but he did receive one compiled by a third major reporting agency, TransUnion, which confirmed an excellent score.

However, Bank of America representatives told him a report from just that agency was not sufficient. So, he wrote to Experian and Equifax, asking, in essence, what gives?

“I said if you all get the information from the same place, how come Trans Union can give me a rating and you can’t? They replied that there was not enough information available to rate me,” Glogowski told me.

After more correspondence, Equifax sent Glogowski a report of all his loans and credit card accounts, showing them all in good status. In June, he also received a letter from Equifax affirming that he was not deceased — though the wording was a little strange and, for me, still left room for some ambiguity about the company’s opinion of his status.

He also did not receive a notification of his actual credit score from Equifax.

Last month, when he figured enough time should have passed for the matter finally to be sorted out by all the reporting agencies, he decided to inquire about refinancing through a different financial institution.

A representative at that institution ran a check and, again, got back a report saying he was deceased. The loan officer there said that bank requires reports specifically from Experian and another agency.

The whole situation left Glogowski thoroughly frustrated. He had asked whether there was a possibility of errors related to the 2008 death of his wife, who was a co-borrower with him on mortgages and credit accounts, or to the 2004 death of his father, who had the same name but was “Sr.” rather than “Jr.”

Each time he asked, he was assured there was no confusion related to his late wife or father. He asked that the status of his Social Security number be checked and double-checked for accuracy. No problem there, either, he was told.

“My credit was — and still is — excellent,” Glogowski steamed. “These people are preventing me from saving money on a refinance.”

With Glogowski’s approval, I contacted Bank of America, Equifax and Experian about his case.

By late Friday, all three had offered encouraging responses that I believe will put Glogowski on track to clear this hurdle in the refinancing process.

An Equifax representative contacted him Friday to say his file actually has been clear since April, and notify him of his credit score from that company. I won’t reveal it here, but I can tell you any of us would be very pleased to have it on our records.

Glogowski said he learned that the erroneous reports apparently stem from one old Exxon credit card he and his wife shared. When she passed away, that triggered a flag on the account indicating that he, too, was deceased, he said.

I wasn’t able to reach Experian as early in my reporting, but spokeswoman Susan Henson said she forwarded the issue to the company’s National Consumer Assistance Center.

“This is a simple problem to fix,” she said, and Experian agents will reach out to Glogowski to determine what steps are necessary to do that.

Meanwhile, Bank of America was able to shed light on the perplexing question of why the credit score issue persisted for Glogowski and remained a barrier to refinancing, even though his individual creditors and at least one reporting agency were aware of his strong status.

It boils down to this: Bank of America relies on a “merged” credit score that is calculated using the individual ratings from the three major agencies. If any one of those ratings isn’t available, the bank cannot calculate the merged score.

“Mr. Glogowski is in a very unusual and unfortunate situation, and the bank is in a difficult position to act on his loan application until he is able to clear the apparent errors from his credit reports,” Bank of America spokesman Rick Simon wrote in response to my inquiry.

Glogowski’s case vividly illustrates the cautious attitude of banks and the consequences for consumers in the wake of the subprime mortgage debacle. Lots of banks and holders of mortgage-backed securities traded in the financial markets lost a bundle from loans approved for borrowers who were poorly vetted.

“As you probably know, mortgage credit is very tight today,” Simon wrote. “Almost every loan originated will be sold to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or FHA/VA, and due diligence standards are being very strictly applied.”

The merged score “is critical to determining the credit risk and satisfying the mortgage origination guidelines that we are applying today,” he said.

“Of course,” he added, “even in times when there is more credit liquidity, it would be difficult to approve a loan to a borrower who, rightly or wrongly, has been independently identified as being deceased.”

It’s a shame that innocent consumers like Stan Glogowski have to work so hard to correct errors made by others and that they have such far-reaching consequences. Tracking the process in his case, however, revealed to me a number of helpful resources for any consumer looking to protect and monitor his or her credit rating.

Here’s the first thing I learned: the Federal Trade Commission can guide consumers to a source of reliable credit reports that really are free. The FTC even has come up with its own catchy jingles for a battle-of-the-bands-style response to those TV commercials stuck in our heads from the other guys.

The FTC-endorsed site, AnnualCreditReport.com, is sponsored by the three credit reporting agencies, which also provide the service by telephone and postal mail.

The individual agencies themselves also provide information and links for disputing erroneous information on reports on their websites.

I’m sorry that Glogowski is now burdened with correcting the error, but I’m glad to know the bank is being vigilant about the accuracy of the information it uses to make its loans.

“We hope Mr. Glogowski will be able to clear up his issues with the credit bureaus quickly and we can resume processing his application,” Bank of America’s Simon told me.

6 Responses

Stan Glogowski has been contacted by Experian, which also says the confusion stems from a credit card that he shared with his late wife and canceled.
In order to clear this up, he has been asked to send the company a notorized letter stating that he is alive. He thinks that’s a little ridiculous but is planning to do that to get the matter resolved and move forward with his refinancing plans.

Good reporting but not much successful advocating. When an advocate can’t even get an entity to treat you as a living person and actually colmpliments the place that insisted you were dead on their caution, maybe it’s time to get a new advocate

Maybe he should have gone to a credit union or local bank for a refinance. BOA is so big that it would never take time to do research into this man’s credit status on a personal level. Maybe a credit union or local bank would see that he has 1 good score and the other two are messed up due to the stupidity of the credit bureaus. I would be very mad because interest rates are going up and this delay only prevents him from getting a good low rate.

Can’t help but think that this happened, in part, because of Bank of America’s aproach using a merged credit report instead of just reviewing the three reporting agencies scores. BoA is a huge operation where the right hand dosen’t know what the left is doing. They fail to start collections in a timely manner and often find themselves out of luck (and cash) when the other creditors have all gotten in line ahead of them. It is difficult to find someone who has the authority to make a decision and resolve an issue.